Knute Josifek, 75, an active ham radio operator, looks for people to talk with as he sits outside his workplace, Fortron/Source Corporation, in Rancho Santa Margarita on Monday, Feb 19, 2018. Josifek uses his ham skills as a volunteer communicator with the City of Mission Viejo’s Emergency Operations Center. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

With the last jarring quake a distant memory, it’s easy to forget about people like Knute Josifek.

But Josifek is thinking about us.

Knute Josifek, 75, an active ham radio operator, looks for people to talk with as he sits outside his workplace, Fortron/Source Corporation, in Rancho Santa Margarita on Monday, Feb 19, 2018. Josifek uses his ham skills as a volunteer communicator with the City of Mission Viejo’s Emergency Operations Center. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Knute Josifek, 75, an active ham radio operator, looks for people to talk with as he sits outside his workplace, Fortron/Source Corporation, in Rancho Santa Margarita on Monday, Feb 19, 2018. Josifek uses his ham skills as a volunteer communicator with the City of Mission Viejo’s Emergency Operations Center. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Knute Josifek, 75, an active ham radio operator, looks for people to talk with as he sits outside his workplace, Fortron/Source Corporation, in Rancho Santa Margarita on Monday, Feb 19, 2018. Josifek uses his ham skills as a volunteer communicator with the City of Mission Viejo’s Emergency Operations Center. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Knute Josifek, 75, an active ham radio operator, looks for people to talk with as he sits outside his workplace, Fortron/Source Corporation, in Rancho Santa Margarita on Monday, Feb 19, 2018. Josifek uses his ham skills as a volunteer communicator with the City of Mission Viejo’s Emergency Operations Center. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

When the Big One hits — and that’s when, not if — you might as well kiss your cellphone goodbye. It’s more than likely emergency officials will shut down all use except for first responders.

We’ve already seen the chaos of jammed phones when people rush to check on loved ones during wildfires and debris flows. But a big quake will topple cell towers and that means zero cell calls.

That is when you might find yourself thanking Josifek, 75, and the other volunteers who run something launched when William Howard Taft first became president in 1909.

These men and women — as well as an increasing number of teens; who knew? — call themselves amateur radio enthusiasts. Trained and licensed, they are the volunteers for our country’s Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service.

Most of us know them as “hams.”

The moniker “ham” comes from hamfisted, a derisive term professionals once called amateur radio operators. But people like Josifek are anything but hamfisted.

He’s an electronics instructor at Saddleback College in south Orange County, an electrical engineer for Fortron Source Corp., a volunteer with the Mission Viejo Office of Emergency Management, a deacon at United Church of God in Los Angeles.

A Navy veteran — Sumner class destroyer, gunfire control — he’s married with an adult daughter and four grandchildren. He’s also a very cool and very sturdy guy.

Josifek enjoys yakking with other ham radio operators — they call it “rag chewing” — but he doesn’t do it from a cozy house, as most do.

He’s a mobile operator and grins, “I’m totally off the grid.”

The radio man allows that if a big quake occurs, his mission is to contact first responders outside of the disaster zone so they know what’s what.

Realize, there are far more quakes than you hear about. For example, at 7:56 a.m. Friday, Feb. 23 in Riverside County near Hemet there was a 2.2 quake.

On this day, Josifek will talk to volunteers in Orange County as well as people thousands of miles away. His farthest “rag chew” is with a man in Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela.

But if the Big One hits, his focus will cover a radius of about 500 miles, close enough for personnel to coordinate rescues.

He carries everything he needs in his vehicle and can set up his radio anywhere, anytime. Yes, that takes practice.

On a recent cold day with trees whipping in wind, Josifek digs out a lead fishing sinker the size of a golf ball, ties it to a big ball of twine and throws the contraption over a branch three stories up.

“Yep, I’m high tech,” Josifik jokes. He also calls trolling for other ham radio operators “fishing.”

Through a series of long-practiced moves, he soon has an antenna wire stretching more than 30 yards between two tall sycamores.

Carrying something like a big wooden tool box, he sets down his portable equipment and recalls the early days when he grew up in Northern California and fell in love with electronics.

Where sunspots matter

Josifek was 16 years old when he saved enough money to buy a military surplus receiver. For Christmas, his parents gave him a Heathkit transmitter.

If you don’t know Heathkit, the name says everything. The kits arrived in pieces and the kids who put them together were the original nerds.

Instead of tiny chips and transistors, Josifek came of age in the era of tubes that glowed orange and could release power banned by today’s safety standards.

Josifek’s lair was a small wood clubhouse in the backyard. His biggest memory is when he was blasted with 800 volts of electricity.

Josifek smiles at the boyhood memories and quotes some of the corny movies back in the day, a more innocent era when making the world right sometimes actually seemed possible just by actor Mickey Rooney shouting, “We can fix up the old barn and put on a show!”

The quote is characteristic of Josifek. On RateMyProfessor.com one student writes, “Knute is a great guy who is very helpful. I enjoyed his class. He does like to tell a lot of corny jokes though.”

The student also warned, “Make sure you do the homework and finish the labs, so you are ready for the tests.”

Electronics have traveled light years since then, but the essence is the same. “The basics haven’t changed in 50 years. The laws are the foundation.”

Josifek faces an array of dials and gauges. On a portable table, there is the transmitter and receiver. Below, is a big car battery. But there’s also an antenna tuner, a ground wire tuner, a gizmo to adjust something called “dummy lode,” and a gadget to test the antenna.

Because of his certifications, Josifek can beef up his transmissions using repeaters set up on the summit of Saddleback Mountain by the South Orange Amateur Radio Association.

But it’s sunspots Josifek is after. Sunspots, the instructor patiently explains, cause the ionosphere to become, well, ionised. That allows higher frequencies to be reflected off the ionosphere, essentially bouncing radio transmissions around the planet.

Josefek gently turns the dials a fraction at a time. The sound is like the movie “Poltergeist.” Screeches, squeals, sounds of static, and ghostly whistles pierce the chill.

While we talk, a voice becomes human. It’s Dave Stroski in Trabuco Canyon, and he shares it’s so cold that he’s putting blankets on his horses, Teddy and Max. Next, we chat with Ray Hutchinson, president of the South Orange Amateur Radio Association.

Founded in 1974, the club currently has 231 members and is one of the largest in Southern California. Like other clubs in the region, it offers classes in licensing and has a public field day in June.

Nationally, there are more than 700,000 licensed amateur radio enthusiasts. With Internet distractions and virtual-reality goggles flying off the shelves, I’m surprised something so low tech is growing.

David Whiting is the award-winning Metro Columnist at The Orange County Register. He also can be heard on radio, has served as a television news anchor and speaks frequently at organizations and universities. He previously was an assistant managing editor and has received Columbia University’s Race and Ethnicity Award, National Headliner awards and Sigma Delta Chi’s Public Service Award. He recently was invited to participate in an exchange program with Chinese journalists. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School for Journalism. He is a two-time Ironman, a two-time Boston marathoner and has climbed the highest mountains in Africa and North and South America.

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